History of Women in the West, Volume I: From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints

604 Pages·2000·73.61 MB·English

by  Pauline Schmitt Pantel (ed.)

From Ancient Goddesses
to Christian Saints

A Women
History of
IN THE WEST
Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot, General Editors
I. From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints

A
HISTORY
WOMEN
OF
THE WEST
IN
From Ancient Goddesses
I.
to Christian Saints
Pauline Schmitt Pantel, Editor
Arthur Goldhammer, Translator
The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
Copyright © 1992 by the President and Fellows
ofHarvard College
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
Fourth printing, 1994
First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 1994
Originally published as Storia delle Donne in Occidente, vol. I,
L'Anticbita, © Gius. Laterza & Figli Spa, Roma-Bari, 1990.
Textdesign by Lisa Diercks
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Storia delle donne in Occidente. English
A history ofwomen in the West/Georges Duby and
Michelle Perrot, general editors,
p. cm.
Translation of: Storia delle donne in Occidente.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: 1. From ancientgoddesses to Christian saints/
Pauline Schmitt Pantel, editor.
isbn 0-674-40370-3 (alk. paper) (cloth)
isbn 0-674-40369-x (pbk.)
— — —
1. Women History. 2. Women Europe History. I. Title.
HQ1121.S79513 1992
—
305.4'o94 dc2o
91-34134
CIP
Contents
A New Kind of History vii
Natalie Zemon Davis andJoan Wallach Scott
Writing the History of Women ix
Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot
Representations of Women i
Pauline Schmitt Pantel
ONE. FEMININE MODELS OF THE
ANCIENT WORLD
9
n
i. What is a Goddess?
Nicole Loraux
2. The Sexual Philosophies of Plato and Aristotle 46
Giulia Sissa
3. The Division of the Sexes in Roman Law 83
Yan Thomas
4. Figures of Women 139
Francois Lissarrague
TWO. TRADITIONAL RITUALS
WOMEN SHARE
231
5. Marriage in Ancient Greece 235
Claudine Leduc
6. Body Politics in Ancient Rome 296
Aline Rousselle
7. Pandora's Daughters and Rituals in Grecian Cities 338
Louise Bruit Zaidman
8. The Religious Roles of Roman Women 377
John Scbeid
9. Early Christian Women 409
Monique Alexandre
THREE. YESTERDAY AND TODAY
445
10. Creating a Myth of Matriarchy 449
Stella Georgoudi
11. Women and Ancient History Today 464
Pauline Schmitt Pantel
The Woman's Voice 473
Notes 481
Bibliography 543
Contributors 557
Illustration Credits 559
Index 561
VI
A New
Kind of History
Natalie Zemon Davis andJoan Wallach Scott
This five-volume history of women is of Italian origin.
The publishers Giuseppe arid Vico Laterza broached the idea to a
group of French historians. As a result, the two general editors
are French, and most of the volume editors are from the country
that has given us in the past decades some of the best of the new
social history. Long before they came to the general editorship of
The History of Women, Georges Duby had redefined the nature
and dynamic ofFrench feudalism and medieval social thought and
Michelle Perrot had given her readers a fresh understanding of
workers' resistance and prison systems in nineteenth-century
France. But curiously enough, the study ofwomen and gender was
long ignored by vanguard social historians in France and had little
role in curriculum reform. Georges Duby's course on medieval
marriage was a rarity a decade ago; Michelle Perrot's seminar was
celebrated for years as one of the few places in Paris one could
discuss the history of women in the nineteenth century.
But if in France one could not count on lecture halls filled with
students of the history of women, one could count on the long-
—
standing appetite of the French reading public in and out of
—
academe for books of high quality on history. The same is true
in Italy, where there are few university courses in women's history,
but many readers willing to learn about the subject. From this
situation the plan for a multivolume history of women emerged,
one written by an international team. These volumes, edited and
written by historians recognized for their work on the history of
women, demonstrate what the study of gender can include, how
fascinating it can be, and where it can lead.
Inspired by a European encyclopedic tradition, the History of
Women is not a conventional textbook, nor does it simply trace a
set of themes as they change over time. Its approach is more
—
eclectic and open-ended than might be the case if an Anglo-
American team had been organizing the project today. The ques-
tions that preoccupy so many American historians of women
questions about equality and difference; about the complementar-
ity of male and female roles; about the interconnections of race,
class, and gender; about the construction of gender and of sex-
—
uality (heterosexuality and homosexuality) do not systematically
organize either the individual essays, the single volumes, or the
entire series. To be sure, there is much material in these volumes
that bears on these questions, and some essays deal with them
directly. But they do not provide a single analytical axis around
which all five volumes are arranged.
Instead The History of Women is a work in process. Rather
than giving exhaustive coverage, it focuses mainly on the western
European experience, with some attention to North America.
Rather than providing a final synthesis, the volumes present a
history that consists of many aspects. They explore the range of
meanings that "women" have had in different contexts and ep-
ochs; they look at the ways gender has been constituted by, and
has in turn constituted, the organization of social, political, and
economic life; they demonstrate the varied methodological and
theoretical approaches that can be used to study women's lives.
Throughout, the situations of women are analyzed in terms of
experience and in terms ofrepresentation. Women are seen as both
the objects of discourse and as active subjects. The distance be-
tween what women say about themselves and what men say about
them is one of the most intense landscapes mapped in the five
volumes.
The essays draw on original research and existing bodies of
literature. As such they reflect something of the state of the field,
especially as it has developed in western European scholarship.
Women'swork and domesticity, heterosexual families and religion,
and internal state policies are more fully treated than, say, sexual
practice and homosexuality, ethnicity and colonialism. The relative
weight given some areas ofwomen's experience rather than others
is not intended to suggest an absolute scale of values about what
is important and what is not. Instead the volumes provide a sam-
pler for those interested in exploring the extent and variety of the
field of women's history and a stimulus for future work and
exploration. Their most important contribution is to establish that
women's history is as open to investigation and interpretation, as
rich and unlimited in scope and substance, as history itself.
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